Inside The Mix | Music Production and Mixing Tips for Music Producers and Artists

#52: Songwriting Tips You Need To Know | Synth Pals Virtual Pub

November 08, 2022 Various Season 2 Episode 29
Inside The Mix | Music Production and Mixing Tips for Music Producers and Artists
#52: Songwriting Tips You Need To Know | Synth Pals Virtual Pub
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THE SYNTH PALS VIRTUAL PUB
This is a great opportunity to connect with fellow artists, network, and share ideas. At least one question and a pub-based beverage or snack are mandatory.
If you would like to join me and my synth pals at the next Synth Pals Virtual Pub, book your seat here: https://calendly.com/synth_music_mastering/synth-pals-virtual-pub

To follow Neon Highway, click here: https://linktr.ee/neonhighway
To follow Aisle9, click here: https://aisle9music.co.uk/
To follow Totta, click here: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tottasvoice/
To follow Thalrex, click here: https://thalrex.com
To follow Typherion, click here: http://typherion.bandcamp.com
To follow Die Miami Die, click here: https://linktr.ee/diemiamidie

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pandppodcast:

Hey, inside the mixed podcast fans, it's Pat here from p and b present on the record, a music podcast that is mostly not about music. We discuss everything from the worst albums ever made to Cobra, from gladiators, and quite literally everything in between. So if you like the sound of two people chatting, absolute waffle whil, also giving a satirical take on the music industry. Give p and b present on the record. And listen, you are listening to Inside The Mix Podcast is your host, Mark Matthews.

Marc Matthews:

Hello and welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast. I'm Mark Matthews, your host, musician, producer, and mix and mastering engineer. You've come to the right place if you wanna know more about your favorite Sy music, artists, music, engineering and production, songwriting and the music industry. I've been writing, producing, mixing, and mastering music for over 15 years. And I wanna share what I've learnt with you. Hey folks, and welcome back to the Inside the Mix podcast. Now, this is another Synth Pals virtual pub episode, and if my, uh, timekeeping and record keeping is correct, I believe it is the fourth one. And, um, we've got a full house today, which is amazing. And, uh, is, I think this is the first full house, which is, which is incredible. Um, now we've got more people on today, so I'm, we've got one or two topics that we're gonna go through and we'll, we'll see how we get on. But, so what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna read out who's joining us today. So I've got Thre who's joining us. Shes, there we go. I've got Tota. Hello Di Miami Dy. Hello Neon Highway. Hey guys. Typhon Yep. And Aisle nine. There we go. So we've got some, some new and some, some old, um, at the moment, Neon Highway and R nine. No, don't talk about me. R on a roll for, um, for four and four and, oh, I think it is in terms of attendance, which is, which is good going, I know last, the last episode we did, it was just the three of us. It's more than

Aisle9:

I got at school.. . Marc Matthews: Um, so the something that I've been wor um, chewing through and it's, it's discussions I've had with other artists as well in other podcast episodes and it's songwriting and how you go about actually starting a song before we go into the actual production phase and the mixing and mastering, it's all about how you actually come up with a song. And it's something that I've been toying with lately because my prolificness and my output is, is quite slow for one of a better way of putting it. And I've been trying to figure out a way. I'm getting more prolific, prolific, put my teeth back in, um, but without, uh, the detriment of quality. So one thing I've been doing is, um, I've been using, I've been limiting myself in terms of the plugins I use. So I've, I've got a sound pallet of plugins. I've limited those. And then I'm also, I've moved away or trying to move away from the, the mouse input of notes in particular with drum programming. So I'm moving back over to trigger pads and keys as well and not getting bogged down into samples and sample packs and the sounds I'm using and coming back to that at the end. And I'm finding it's working, uh, a lot better for me. And one other thing that I'm doing in particular as well is using, uh, starting out with chords Now. I did something this week that I've never done before when it comes to production. And I'm not, not, not cuz it's bad, but it's just something I've never done. And that is used a mid sequence of chords. That preexist and then going in and then changing it to my own, my own liking. And I'm finding it quite liberating and it works quite well for me, and it's something I'm, I'm gonna pursue. So that's sort of where I'm at at the moment. So what I'm, what I'd like to hear from, and I think it would be good for the audience as well, is we've got sort of seven individuals here and find out sort of how you will start your, your music. So in a nutshell, what I now do is I have my, my limited samples, my sample pack, and then I'll start out with a cord progression, and then I'll build it from there. And I don't get bogged down into the actual sounds that I'm using until it comes to the mixing phase. So with that in mind, um, let's start, let's go around. So tota, how, how would you go around, how would you go about starting the actual songwriting process? Well, I guess

Totta:

I come from, um, primarily three different, uh, entry points. I'll either, uh, either go for a beat that I come up with. In my head that I wanna try building out, I was gonna replicate what I mean. But I figured I'd blush my tits off if I tried . But very recently, I, I just had this idea that I wanted to do a, that kind of swing type. The very eighties yb that

Marc Matthews:

reminds me of the Michael Jackson track. Which track is that right? The way you wake me f the way you make me better? Yes. Yeah. And I feel

Totta:

like beats like that, they're, they're just not really, The beat itself is such a good fucking swing. And just laying down that beat with really simple, again, using simple, um, plugins that I had nothing fancy default stuff, even just to get the beat out there. And then working from that rhythm, uh, it made me play my keys very differently, the way I placed the chords. Um, so that's one input. The second is just very lyrical. If I have a certain word that is like, Filled with a feeling. I had the word darling, that I just thought, Oh, that's such a old over the top romantic thing to even say darling. And I just built this romantic song outta that, that turn into a duet. Um, and the last one is, well just cuz I'm a piano player, sitting and noodling in front of the piano, basically, those are my three entry points. Um, and, and not being afraid to try things out. I think generally inspiration can kind of come from anywhere. That's probably the blandest thing anyone's ever fucking said. Uh, but it can, and to not judge yourself to harshly, if you find yourself listening to a song in a movie and being like, Oh, I really like the way this guitar melody went up here. I wanna try to isolate that and make something of my own out of it. Like latching on to ideas as soon as they come, basically, uh, is what I try to do, but. Generally it tends to be drums, piano, or a lyric that guides

Marc Matthews:

me with regards to that drum beat that, that Michael Jackson drum beat. How are you creating that? Are you, are you manufacturing that or are you actually playing it? Because that's, that's quite a, quite a, a laid back beat, isn't it? And yeah,

Totta:

I wish I could play it. I mean, I have a drums kit and all, and I am a drummer, but I don't know how to record drums. Uh, cause I'm not a great producer. So I'm sat on my mid keys pretending to play, go to get the, uh, Yeah, it really is. It's so simple as well to make it sound really fucking tight, uh, and, and groovy. But I, I really do like to, I want the slog. I want the, uh, the difference of how hard I hit the note. What is that velocity? Yes. Thank you. I need the velocity as a drummer, if I don't have velocity input. It's, uh, it just sounds stale. Which sometimes technically I want, if I want it to sound really electronic. Um, but yeah, usually I try to do manual input to get the velocity

Marc Matthews:

changes. Yeah. Yeah. Velocity's key when it comes to drums, isn't it? Mm. Yeah. I think truly. Um, can you, can you pick it out quite easily then when someone's got the velocity wrong? If they've, if they've like, put a, they've, they've sort of like drawn in the notes themselves. And then can you, can you, is that easy to, because I'm not a drummer, as a drummer, can you pick out when that velocity's been manufacture?

Totta:

I mean, maybe if I listened for it? I think it just generally gives the song a very electronic sound if, if it doesn't have a change in velocity. So it's definitely when it comes down to, uh, Tom's building a beat, like do, do, do do, do, do. Not only having the kick, pulling that, but having Toms laid over that double that beat and that, uh, have a different velocity pointing out. Uh, the lead beat, uh, so to speak. It makes all the difference in not just making it sound, um, too intense to give it breathing room. You need some of the notes to be lower velocity so they don't all

Marc Matthews:

dominate. Yeah. Thanks. So, yeah, brilliant stuff. I, I really want to hear that drum beat as well, cuz I, I love Marco Jackson. I love that. That's off the bad album as well, isn't it? The way you make me feel. I'm sure it is on the bad album. Um, and it's a great drum beat, so I'm intrigued to see how that, that materializes. Um, so then moving around, so with regards to starting songs, let's go, um, thx how would you, how does your song, how do your songs start? Well,

Thalrex:

there's method to everything, but, um, I, I kind of work a bit schizophrenic, if you could say . Uh, so, uh, usually how I start out is, uh, I lay, lay down a baseline.. Uh, and then I, then I start, uh, finding the course to that baseline and just working from there really. Um, in, in my case, it's like, uh, I, I have never really learned any advanced music theory, so for me it's all about, uh, using my ears and just, uh, figuring out what what I find sounds, uh, correct or good. Um, so, but, um, yeah, drums, chords, and then, uh, no, sorry, bass chords. And then, uh, I build a beat around it. Uh, usually all my tracks starts out like, uh, kind of like a, a 16 beat, uh, 16 bar loop, and. I have some projects that, uh, that have been stuck, uh, stuck like loops, uh, for like, uh, half a year. And then, uh, . Then maybe I, some, sometimes later I come back to, to the loop and uh, I just sit down one night and, uh, create a full track from that loop. Um, but very often I just end up, end up with small, small loops and that's all I manage for, for that session,

Marc Matthews:

really. How do you get, So I'll put this out to the, to the group now. So you say you got all these, you got a bank of loops that you've had for six months, half a year. How do you then get those from loops to a full song? Does anyone have like a secret? I say secret won't be your secret anymore cause you're gonna reveal it. Does anyone have a, uh, like a, a workflow that they have to get a loop to a

Aisle9:

full. I just keep adding random amounts of stuff to it until I, you know, almost just like, literally we will add new ideas, kind of keep building sometimes new ideas on top of that 16 bar loop and then, then start spreading it all out. And, you know, you've, you know, you've got way too much, you know, you've got way too many ideas, but only a few of them maybe what you're gonna really need. But like, you then sort of spread it out from there all the way through. Um, but I don't always approach it in that way, but I, I, I do sometimes, like, you know, I sometimes I call them 16 bar masterpieces. Cause like, you know, like Sarah, they just never go further. They just end up literally stuck on that thing and then you go, Oh, that's another one I've written. That's never going to turn into something. But, but. Sometimes like, you know, it is sort of improvising. I think a lot like over the top of that 16 bars, like, you know, you'll improvise some percussion, you'll try some, you know, different synth sounds or different like a lead sound or whatever. So you might be muting things and playing something else over the top because gradually you're sort of pairing down what parts work with each other as well. And of course, I mean that is, if it'll works over just a 16 bar core progression, cuz of course you might wanna change the core progression, so you might write another 16 bars or something next to it. But like, um, but at some point I, I've started more and more trying. To get out of that fairly quickly into sort of mapping out the whole thing. So I don't get, I find if I get sort of into the manity eye of drum sounds and everything, which I do, I get really stuck in that If I'm not careful, I'm on a kick drum in week three. Um, you know, so I try to sort of like, you know, move past, like kick and snare by sort of month or something, you know, um, and um, like, you know, so I'm just pushing myself to not end up stuck in production sort of mode, like where you haven't got any musical substance. So I think if I map it out, Relatively quickly, In fact, get the whole idea out relatively quickly. I find otherwise I get bored and have to go and make tea.

Totta:

Yeah, I kind of like to go like the harmonic route. I try to, if I have a 16 bar loop that I really like, I really try to go away from it and find something that makes it really satisfying to come back into that. Like where, which melodic note do I wanna end this on in, in order to want to come back to that 16 bar loop? What makes that satisfying? Uh, to return to like making my songs, I often think of them as Oreo cookies and I try to figure out is it the, the really juicy, nice, gooey stuff in the middle or is this my cookie part? Uh, and I try to like move on from the cookie to the gooey and I want. Each transition to be satisfying. That's probably as well. Cause I always add vocals to my song that I want it to be like verse or pre-chorus leading into a really satisfying chorus. And then the transition back into that 16 bar loop. That most likely is my verse. Then I want that to feel satisfying as well as a listener. So I go, I go really melodic with it. When I have a loop like that, I try to just pull the melody away from it, change up the chord progression and see if I can find my way back home to that original loop.

Marc Matthews:

Yeah, I think that's a great way of doing

Aisle9:

it. Interest can I That's a great advice. Yeah. God, Tim, can I ask something, Mark? Yeah. Offer that, which is, um, cuz to you're saying you, you, you, you know, your stuff is song based often, so you're gonna put vocals on it and I'm a bit half and half, sometimes I'm putting vocals on things, sometimes I'm not. But like, if you're not putting vocals, you're not doing things necessary in a song format. What. What format do people find that they use? Are they using a sort of, are they thinking, this is the verse, this is the chorus, this is the middle eight, or the bridge, or whatever you wanna call it. You know, are you thinking that way to sort of build your song up or do you not think that way at all? Do you think in a different sort of set of forms that you think A, B, a B, you know, sort of, do you think in themes or do you just like, think in a linear sort of way that every sort of, you know, you're constantly moving in sort of eight bar patterns or 16 bar patterns. How do you think of the structure of your piece of music, which is quite an interesting sort of thing, particularly in electronic music, which can be quite formulaic, so interested what other people do.

Die Miami Die:

No, I mean, it's all over the place and for me it's just more of what's the flow? Like, what am I feeling as I'm composing it? Uh, if you listen to, um, a fair bit, Of some of my recent stuff, I really am a big fan of, uh, wide chord progressions that kind of almost sy uh, symphonic in a way. And I always like to add those in as a nice little break. But I mean, if you listen, there's no, some, some songs have like a, a bit more structure to them, but other ones that just say, I let the song become the song. There are so many times where I have, I've been inspired by a song and I'm like, Okay, I wanna try to capture this sound. And it always turns into something good that's not anywhere close to what I was originally going for. So, um, I would say for me anyway, I just let the song become what it's supposed to be. Like, where's the flow going, What cool sound am I getting? And that's another reason why. Varies so much too. And tone is because I just let it become what it is and, and say, screw it. You know, just put it out there and see what happens with it. Yeah, I'm

Typherion:

with you on that, man. That's kind of how I approach my songwriting as well. But generally what I try to do is I have, like, in my mind, I have like a hook that I want to have consistent throughout the song, but my songwriting is generally, like, I'm influenced by a lot of progressive metals. So it, it's constantly changing and so there's always like just, there's always a little bit of chaos going just throughout the music. And so, but what I try to continue maintaining is that hook. Um, and that can be difficult. So sometimes I'll like reintroduce it with like a counter melody or like I'll, um, reintroduce it with a different synth and then I'll maybe slow it down. I'll add reverb to it. I'll distort it. Um, just whatever I can to continue keeping the hook, but also keep it fresh. Um, I don't know. Something that I've realized when I, when I write music is like, I have like this songwriting a, d, d where I can't have two things repeat. So I'm like, Oh man, this is boring. This is gonna be boring. So then I like, I just change it up again and then when I listen to it back I'm like, Wow, this is so like all over the place. This is who, who mentioned schizophrenic? Like, or something like that?. Yeah. Like that's kind of, that's kinda how I end up hearing my music sometimes. That's something I'm trying to work on,

Die Miami Die:

but Yeah. Yeah. I do the same thing. I'll throw in just random percussion cuz I'm like, oh this can't, it sounds boring. Just going, you know, for say four bars with a chord progression and like say synth lead. Like I want, Alright, let me add in some percussion. I think that Maxi Maxist kind of take sometimes it isn't, isn't the best. Um, I think., we analyze our own music, uh, too harshly and we're like, Oh, this is boring. But you know, again, the reason why it might sound boring to us cause we're listening to it for how many times, you know, hundreds of times, and it's gonna start sounding a little dull. But to people who are listening to the first, second, third, fourth time, like, it's gonna sound fresh and it's gonna be fine. And, uh, I find myself trying to remove things a lot more often now than I would have even a year.

Neon Highway:

I d I think, I think sort of the sort of western kinda music were all conditioned into this verse cor, various middle lake kinda stuff. And I think agree with di Aai. I think, you know, if you can find something more interesting just by developing a track, um, it's not always how I work, but it's certainly something I would aspire to. You know, I listen to bands like Underworld who can do an 11 minute track that is two chords. And you're like, How, how are they maintaining my interest for 11 minutes on two chords? And it's cause they're not showcasing this, the lead send or the pads or anything else. What they're showcasing is the percussion that's running underneath or the baseline that's changing the stuff that typically we, we don't go for, we kinda. Again, in Western music, we, we kinda go, we want the bass in the drum to be doing the thing, doing the rhythm section. And we'll build upon that instead of thinking, let the pads and the chords just continue to repeat as if they were the bass in the drum. And let the percussion be the ones that evolve. And like you said, dynamic die, putting extra things in there. Um, I like to pull out a nuances into tracks. I'm doing, you know, kinda not your typical kinda wishes, but kinda big sort of drum beats that happen once in the tune or a little kinda servo motor in there. Something kind from listening to industrial music in the nineties, little servo motors, things like that. Um, just anything that kinda surprise you. I think when, when you're building that.

Marc Matthews:

Yeah, that's a, that's a great idea. And it's something I do in tracks as well. Um, going back to what the, what Tim's original question was, I think I take it from a slightly different, um, viewpoint and whereby I'm, I think it's because I'm very pragmatic with my approach to things in that I think, Right, I've got a loop and then I'll just, I'll start mapping out the sections that I want. And then I think in logic, the insert silence between locators is probably my most used tool, purely because I then start moving those things around. I have it set and I'm like, Oh, I need space there. I need space there, and then I'll cut space there. And so I think, but going back to what Diami Di said, and, and anti Farian as well, I think, but there are elements of that in there too. And I think with Typhons one in particular, I think the reason. I can see why you like Prague now in that, because if you are, if you're writing songs where you're having nothing repeats, that's very proggy. Um, I, I'm a metalhead myself. I know some Prague metal, but not, not a massive amount, but I can see where you're coming from with that. So my question is, you car then is how, how do you start, How do you, so you got an idea. How does that song, song start then?

Neon Highway:

Uh, typically I don't have an idea. Um, so it will, it kinda a number of different ways and similar to, to, um, I piano is my instrument that I love going to, I've got a piano in the house and I'll occasionally, I would say about a third of the output that I've done, I'll sit at a piano and I like that for, for figuring out nice chord sequences because they sound beautiful on a piano. Um, and. I've done that where I've taken a chord sequence upstairs, put it onto laptop, key it in, um, and it's then become like kinda eighties, early nineties goth sounding track. And then I'll just take the instrumentation and switch it from a traditional base or a kit or something into something more electronic, put some delay on it, and suddenly it's become the serene, beautiful piano track that's evolved through an a late eighties goth track and ends up as this electro piece. Um, and I think in terms of sort of building it from the start, Um, I'm not particularly great with percussion, so I'm sort of keen in 1 3, 1 3, like 10, um, which is quite boring. My rhythm's not great, but once I've keyed in and I built stuff over that, then I'll go in and Ill just, on the piano roll, just kind move it back a bit, move it forward a beat, start inserting other beats and build complexity from there. So it's almost like, it's like having a black and white sketch. It's like having a sketch in front of you and gradually that is being colored in until you've got the full track, which ends up this like, massive color painting, which you want it

Marc Matthews:

to be. Yeah, I like that idea, This sketch pad. I think I've said that on, on many episodes of the podcast. The idea of having a sketch pad and trying not to get bogged down with the actual sounds and just getting the ideas down. And, um, chatting to, chatting to Michael just now and, um, with, and, and the other interview. I had earlier today with, with another gentle called Simon from the safety word. And they said the exact same thing. It's just to get the ideas down, don't get bogged down. And off the back of that though, one, one key question they come up with, um, or I think this was Simon with the safety word said now regard. He said, regardless of whether or not he actually likes the song, he'll continue to the end and write the whole song. So I've been intrigued to know if everyone else or anyone else follows or, or everyone does follow that similar pathway. Cause I know I fall foul of this. I'll get halfway through and I'll listen, but I don't like that. And then I'll kick it to the curb rather than actually take it all the way to the end. I'll come back. Obviously, I'll, I'll come back to the how you start a song with everyone else. But does everyone else, once they start a song, are they like, You know what, I'm gonna finish this. I'm gonna take it and see it through to the end. Not at all.. Aisle9: No, I.

Typherion:

The number of like files I have in my hard drive, , I just need it clear. It's just, and I open up an old project, I'm like, Why would I write this? Like I just, the creative process is such a nightmare. Cause I like, in the moment I like it and then I'll revisit it. I'm like, Oh God, what cool was I thinking?

Die Miami Die:

Yeah. Yeah. I, I think I'm a firm believer now. I, I'm guilty of this as well. I have hundreds, literally hundreds of ideas and concepts and half tracks and quarter tracks. I'm a firm believer though, that if you sit there long enough, you will always work it out. So it depends on what you got. Like, do you have something that's good? Yeah. Is it mediocre? Yeah. If I work it, maybe I can get something better or finish it. But we all have, you know, limited. Right, Like we have, there's so much other, like so many other things that we have to do as artists, like try to promote, or I do my own album artwork too and everything. So you only have a certain amount of time. And if it's a decent idea, that's fine, you can work it to the end, but wouldn't you wanna put that into something that sounds a little bit better? And those are usually the ones that tend to become tracks. They're the ones that. I kind of favor a better direction and are worth putting the work into. I,

Neon Highway:

I was just gonna say briefly, does everybody remember all those ideas? Like you've got those banks of ideas and your hard drive, because I know that I can think back and go, I wrote a track two years ago, or three years ago, and actually one bar of that baseline would be great. And I can go back, copy it, and just paste it into the new track and go, That's exactly what I wanted there. So do you guys remember all those failed projects and did it, do they come back to you

Thalrex:

then? Well, actually, actually, um, sometimes. Uh, when, when I get stuck in a, in a, in a small loop and I kind of abandoned project, uh, sometimes, uh, later when I, when I, uh, go over my project files and listening to what I, what I have, uh, I can get surprised. Uh, so, uh, Like, uh, my, uh, my EP that I released in January, Uh, the, uh, title track Memories from, from that, uh, EP was kind of an, uh, accidental track because it was, uh, one of the loops that I had, I made, made it over a year ago and, uh, kind of just abandoned it. Uh, and then I sat down one night then, uh, figured out I liked the core progression. So let's just make this track work., Totta: I kind of do the same. I try to hang on to any old ideas, cuz what I was gonna say, um, to the question earlier is, uh, I like to, I, nowadays I try not to force them all into becoming songs. I figure I have ideas that sometimes would suit, um, they're meant to be. Uh, instrumentals. They're not meant to have vocals. And I keep trying to fucking put vocals on a track that I don't want vocals on for no reason. And I'm like, Oh, just make this an instrumental track instead, and let it be that or the other wave. I, I've done vocal only tracks, acapella songs that I put as little interludes because I just wanted the voice. I wanted nothing else. And being more free with that and not trying to force cause to, Well, I feel like I'm making music only for my own sake anyway. Right. You know, if nobody's gonna listen to it anyway, I might as well do what I wanna do. So well, I try to force it into some sort of mainstream structure if it's only in my own head for my universe. So I try to let things, um, I try to dive into the cinematic aspect and ask myself like, Oh, could I turn this into like a cool, uh, interlude sequence? Uh, what is playing in my mind when I hear this and why doesn't it wanna be a song and then isolate that and let it be something different than a song And I still get to release it. I still get to put it out into the world, but it just doesn't need to become a song.

Marc Matthews:

Yeah, that's a really good mentality to have, I think, and thinking that actually it doesn't necessarily have to be a full blown song. It could be something totally different. Um, and I've done something similar. It's probably something I used to do a while back when I was more into sort of scoring stuff or not cuz I did it, I just did it for fun, like scoring stuff and then releasing my interpretations of. Of, um, famous scenes and stuff, and I know I picked up again earlier, well probably a few months ago, but time got away from me again. Um, but no, I think it's great if you can have that vision of where, actually this isn't gonna be a full song, but I can do this with it instead. And which is, which is fantastic. So, going on to starting a song, uh, let's go with Ty Farian. So you mentioned, uh, you, you, your songs generally don't have, or you try not to repeat the same thing. How, how does that,

Typherion:

So I guess, uh, I, so I'm a guitar player first, and for, actually, I don't know why. I'm gonna say first and foremost, I don't know how to play anything else. I actually don't know how to play keys. So what I, what I generally, what I generally do is I, uh, I write some guitar riffs and then I painfully transcribe them into midi and that becomes my synth line. And so, Um, my guitar riffs are generally pretty progressive. Um, and so that's where I start. And then from there I'll try to, in the back of my mind, I'm always thinking, Okay, like I, I want to transport the listener somewhere. Like any kind of creative medium, I always view it as a form of escapism. So like, especially with synth wave, it's very easy to do that. Um, so what I try to do is, okay, like what's the vibe? Is there any kind of piece of fiction that I, that I'm inspired by to like transport this, this listener to? Um, so I, I start adding cordal layers. I start using, um, Uh, I use a lot of, uh, like impacts, uh, a lot of like, just slams to like transition and stuff like that. Um, those are fun to use. Uh, I have a whole library of just like very, um, industrial sounds of like metallic hits and that's just such a, it's for me, it's like such a cheap way to like just transition to the next part because just it's so sudden, uh, and the listener immediately like, cues in, Okay, this is, this is something new. Um, I also use a lot of like low pass or, uh, automated filters, um, to build tension. Um, but yeah, generally, uh, it starts with the guitar I write and the guitar is basically like, I guess one thing that I didn't. Uh, coming into the synth wave space is, uh, people call arps like any kind of, any kind of synth line is an arp. I didn't realize that cuz like as a guitar player, I know what an arpeggio is., right? It's like, it's just the digital notes of a chord. Right? But I didn't realize that, Oh, I'm writing all my riffs are arps. So that's where it starts. And then I'll add like cord layers in the background, like a pad, and then I'll work on the percussion. Um, and eventually, hopefully it leads me to like something amazing. But I don. Sometimes I've been, I've been thinking about that. There's a construction site near me and I was like, I need to sample this. Like, I need to just like pull out my phone and just like record this literally, cuz

Marc Matthews:

uh, I'd love to do that. I'm with you there. I'm with you on The Impacts as well. I use Impacts a lot in songs and specifically with Transitions. Um, yeah, Yeah. I love using Impacts. Do you create or does anyone create their own impacts from like, Well, it

Die Miami Die:

depends on the type of impact. Like, I'm more used to EDM style impacts, base white noise and whatever else. Um, but yeah, I created one, one time. It wasn't, it took, I don't know, 20 minutes, but it was just a, it was kind of a pain in the ass. I could have just gone onto Splice and gotten an impact there. But it was interesting to kind of feel it out and, uh, You know, I, you know, I score music professionally as well. And uh, remember a few years ago I was working on something and they wanted like a Han Zimmer a w kind of thing, and that, that took some time too. It's not technically an impact, I don't think, but um, just real realize like it's. Kind of crazy to try to layer certain sounds to get what you want it to sound like. And, uh, it's interesting, but it just seems like ultimately a waste of time. Nobody but probably us are gonna be like, Oh wow, you designed that impact. Uh, cool. No one else is gonna know. So I feel like, you know, again, with limited time, just easier to pull in a sample if you can. Uh, but I definitely think everyone should do it because I think it's gonna teach you, just gonna teach you more about the production process.

Marc Matthews:

No, I agree with you that, and it reminds me of a story of, uh, I had where I wanted to create a sound and it was the sound of, um, stabbing a pig. And this was for a foy sound design. So I had a melon and I went to stab the melon instead of stabbing the melon, and I stabbed my hand. So I just went bang into my hand and all you can hear is me swearing into, into the microphone. And I used the sound of the knife going into my hand on the final old piece as well. It's, I think it's on the internet somewhere. I wonder if it's still on my, it might still be on my YouTube channel. It's, uh, I did a. A recreation of the scene from Apocalyptical, whether it's the, if you've seen it, there's an opening chase scene and then the pig gets impaled and that pig getting impaled is, uh, um, when I've recreated it, is my hand getting stabbed instead of a watermelon? But yeah, there's a nice bit of information for

Aisle9:

you don't, I don't go harming animals in my tracks or myself, Jim help it. But, um, I'm, I'm just not as professional, I don't think. But, um, the, but what I do do is like, um, sort of, I, I like grabbing sort of, uh, sort of sounds and, and, and creating sort of, you say impacts, but maybe more like rises and things by reversing things, by like, doing a lot of like sort of manipulation of sound. Like, so I might not have made the original sound, Um, or I might, you know, play a pad or I might actually sample the entire track. Like sort of, I do that quite a lot. Like sort of, you know, which is great thing to do is sort of actually, you know, Use your own track as like, you know, and spin it all backwards or do something with it and like that kind of thing. So like, yeah, well slow it all down weirdly. Or that kind of thing. So I, a song is just a riser do use sound song riser agree with Miami di as I'm doing it and spending hours creating this posh whatever. I'm sitting there going, no one fucking cares to listen and go. Yeah, fantastic. What a great riser that was. So yeah, I am aware that you have a very valid 0.3 and half minutes . It's just a, Yeah,

Die Miami Die:

that's, uh, you know what, Johan, Zimmer did that in the dark night, right? Isn't that, that electronic, um, cello. It's just essentially a riser, It's a pitch riser. Yeah, I think, right. It doesn't, I don't think it, I don't know. Don't quote me on that. I don't know if it crescendos to anything. I think it just. is what it is, but I dunno. Used a really long rise, essentially. Uh,

Thalrex:

I, I, I actually have a, have a little technique that I use, uh, sometimes in my productions, uh, where I, uh, where I take, uh, take one of my, uh, one of my sys and add, uh, a really, really big, with a long tail, and then I, uh, record this, uh, reverse it. And I use that, uh, uh, that reversed reverb as like, as kind of a riser, uh, yeah. Before, Before. Uh, yeah. I think that's something, sometimes that work.

Neon Highway:

It's like you were term reverse. I love reverse piano. And the reverse piano is a great way of kinda building right up,

Marc Matthews:

you know? And yeah.

Thalrex:

Sounds

Totta:

really cool speaking for the, uh, musicians who like a, I thinking that mangos, No, sorry. I was just gonna say, I'm one of those, I'm a, I'm not a great producer, but I. I know how I want it to sound, and I have an audio engineer, so I'm, I'm the kind of person who records and goes, Can you do something that goes like, right for this part? And I need that to be fucking tight on exactly the, like, . I know how I want it, but I don't know how to make it so splice. Generally, if I wanna put it in myself, that's where I look

Aisle9:

to. Well, if it involves pain, Mark can make it for you. there's a

Marc Matthews:

quick little plug for me. I do the same day when you mentioned there about making sounds, I'll be sat there like, uh, writing or composing or something and then I'll just, I think, Oh no, I'll just voice it. I'll be like, Oh, this, this ain bit here and he is, The dunk or it needs a or something like that. And then I'll try, try and recreate it as best I can. Yeah. All that. Yeah, exactly. But going back to what Tim said earlier about actually taking your song Yeah, yeah. Taking your song and then like manipulating it in, in your own track. It kind of reminds me of the, there's a bit of trivia for you here. The Kit Kat analogy of that, the actual chocolate used by Kit Kat features an actual Kit Kat in it. So they recycle Kit Kat into the Kit Kat Chocolate and it's a hit. So there you go. If you didn't know that already, you do now. Um, I can't remember where I got that from.

Aisle9:

I always loved Brian Enos. Brian Enos thing of like, he has this sort of some weird recording he's done of insects from South America or something. He just puts into recordings. So the the whole thing will be there and everyone will be going, Oh yeah, it's really great, but what's wrong? And he'll be like, Yeah, it's missing something. And he just puts this in at a subliminal, really low level into the track and everyone goes like, Yeah. And, and he says, Yeah, it's great now. And he just like, puts it in, but you can't really hear it. But it's just like, he's got Brian Enos insects in the background somewhere and it's great. And it's, he's the kind of person who can wander in and suggest doing this and everyone goes, Oh, that's a great idea, Brian. Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, you, you two's album would've never been this good had you not put insects all over it. But like, you know, so he is, it's weird. He, but he's got this idea. He's, uh, if you've never read his, um, index of, uh, I think it's, Pen. It's a sort of autobiography, sort of like, Oh, appendices, Andies something. Yeah. Yes, Swollen something. Yeah. Yeah. I can't remember what it's called, but it's a really good book of all his very odd producer ideas, most of which the rest of us would never get away with if we were working with someone else, but they are interesting. It's that thing of just throwing, Actually, it sounds crazy, but it's just throwing the process out. It's. Making the thing not boring, not predictable, just coming up with something a little bit creative. And I think you can do that just in your own writing, in your own day to day sort of stuff by going like, Oh, maybe I do it this way all the time, but like, you know what, I'm just gonna just gonna mix it up and do something a different way than I would normally aren't gonna reverse that vocal. I'm going to, you know, start at the end. You've got so much in front of you as well. Move to the beginning. No, I dunno.

Neon Highway:

And, and I think, Mark, we talked about it before when we were talking about Isotope or love of Isotope and Vocal Sy and you were like, have you put on anything else? And I was like, Oh, I haven't done that yet. You're like, try putting on some drums. I was like, that's a great idea. You know, it's just like, um, I'm sure Craftwork put Vocoders on some of their drums back in the seventies, but, um, it, you just forget that. Do you know what we could really easily just apply something that's not meant to go into that. Yeah. Um, you know, mix

Aisle9:

it up. How many people use samplers?

Marc Matthews:

Sorry. I was gonna say, I, I use a, i, I do use a sampler. I don't, don't use them extensively, to be fair. Um, but what I was gonna say is a response, No. Cause I've just, sorry. In response to car was, it reminds, made the story of how, I can't remember what artist it was, It was, I was in Han Studio and they were describing how they would record a vocal and said out through a guitar cabin and record it with an SM 57 and then captured the room reverb. And I can't remember which band it was. It might, it might have well have been Depeche mode, um, or it was Bowie. I can't remember which one. Um, but no, it goes back to what, what Karl was saying of like how just doing something different. Um, and obviously I, I think they had more time and more money to spend in the studio, but no. Tim, what, what was your question?

Aisle9:

I've forgotten them.. Um, Your sampler. Sampler. Um, yeah. It's, it's, its, it is like when you are, when you're recording, like I, I just started doing it more and it's very, I mean, uh, a typhon would know because obviously you, we use the same d a w, which is better than all of yours. Um, um, , Thank you bud.. and, uh, door wars. Yes. It started, um, and no, basically, so it, what you can do is you've got this, there's a very basic sampler that, like you can just create a sample track, um, just like an instrument track. And then on that you get, you keyboard down the bottom on your sample track, and you can literally just drag anything off of your arrange window and just drop it onto a key and. It's automatically sort of spread across a keyboard. And I mean, I mean, I, I did come from the data hardware sampling. I mean, that's what I used to do was like sit with an AKIs 3000, like sampling religiously things into my achi to make a drum kit, to make a, uh, which took forever to do stuff. And yet it was the only way of making a lot of sounds. Um, there, there was no other way of making them. Um, and then you had to save them all out to discs and load them all off discs if the discs didn't break. And it took forever. So I got to the point where I just, the whole thought of sampling when you could get digital audio, which is all just moveable about on your screen. I just hated sampling. And I was like, Why would I bother sampling again? But of. It's so creative. You just grab a vocal, you chuck it onto a key, you start playing the vocal across the keyboard and suddenly you change the loop point on the vo. You put a filter on it. You and, and before you know it, you've made an instrument. A totally new sounding sort of thing to play around with. Which, yes, there are probably versions similar somewhere if you look through all your billions of sounds in your plugins. But like, you know, I think it's that thing of just like, you know, being quite sort of creative with your own stuff that you busy writing. Then you, I don't that up and then I'll create a rhythm with that and I've got a percussive just outta curiosity sound to use. And that percussive sound came from

Typherion:

my vocal. That's hilarious. Cuz like I thought everyone was, you know,

Aisle9:

stabbing from me. It's all quite easy to do, you know, Yeah. What do you use Die

Die Miami Die:

Miami Day? I use FL Studio. I've used it. I've used it. I was talk, I'm going date myself here, but I was 16, so 21 years ago, uh, this guy showed me this thing called Fruity Loops, and I was like, Wow, this is so cool. And I know, I think it was maybe a couple years later that I downloaded it illegally. And then, um, I, I'd say what, I think 2011, I actually bought the program. I start buying my stuff, right? Like a real producer buys their stuff. They don't rip it like Steve Viki or, you know, anyone, anyone who does. I, You guys remember that one? That's from ever ago? Yeah. I got busted for using like a cracked version of Silent or something like that. But, um, yeah, I, I'm just, I wanna say I'm, I'm loyal to it. I think it's actually, I think there's a lot of great stuff, but Ableton has some great stuff too, apparently. Like you can quantize uh, audio as you're recording. So there's, you know, there's give and take for some things. I don't believe you can do it with Ffl. You might be able to, but. You know, they all have, like, I feel like it's more of a preference thing. Like they can all essentially do basically the same thing and then from there it just kind of goes with, I think, your work workflow you like better. Um, but like I said, I'm just used to ffl. I don't feel I'm too lazy to learn anything else, so I guess I'm stuck with it.

Thalrex:

uh, I actually tried, tried to learn, uh, uh, logic a couple of years ago, but, uh, I just can't, can't get used to anything else in the, the, uh, piano, uh, in Apple Studio. It's so easy to work with if you know how to use it.

Marc Matthews:

Mm-hmm.? Yeah. Okay. It's, it is, I obviously doing the podcast and interviewing various artists and stuff, and you, you start to see a pattern of what people use. And, um, Ableton doesn't factor that hugely, obviously, it's used by a vast array of individuals and, and artists and performance and stuff. And you can use it as a, as a door in every, in, every, in every respect. But I was, I was chatting to, um, the, the interview before this with Michael, and he used Ableton and he was saying that he moved over from Reason. Has anyone used Reason Has, are there any reason? Uses, has anyone got any experience with using Reason? I'm being true to know that

Aisle9:

I've used it before, but not, not sort of like with much success myself, but like years ago I used, used it when it first came out, but, um, uh, I was just talking to, um, his name's gone out in my head. Now, Mike, um, um, you, you've had, you've got an interview on the podcast with him coming up, um, uh, Mark you've just done. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I was trying just now. Yeah, he's, yeah. And he's, they mark your video drop his reason, doesn't he? Yeah. He's really a big reason user. But, uh, yeah, he did, um, or had been, that really got him into doing it anyway. I dunno if he still use it exclusively, but yeah, he, uh,

Marc Matthews:

spoil, spoiler alert for that episode. But he, he did the whole of the California album using reason. Um, and then he moved over to, moved over to, Yeah, that's right. To Ableton. Yeah. Um, I, I used reason five and I really liked the idea of like, being able to see the back and the, and the rooting and everything. And the, the actual, um, Synthes that came with it, The haw synthesizer was really, really good. But then I moved to Logic and then I went to Pro Tools for a bit. Um, and then I stopped actually recording, so I then went back to Logic. Um, but I do like Ableton. I've, I've toyed with Ableton a little bit. I've used, I created a synth once. Was it a synth? No, it wasn't, It was a, um, I used. Max MSP created a, um, a Reva plugin and then I could play it and, and use it. Enable, it's all very convoluted. I had a big whale on the screen that reacted to it. It was, it was quite interesting performance that, um, but no, I, um, I'd love to use much, I think like Di Miami di I think it was maybe THX said it'd be like again and using another dw, but it's kind of time, isn't it? Like why fix what isn't, why isn't necessarily broken. What about any Reaper users in the house? Anyone use Reaper? Oh, Tumbleweed. I've

Typherion:

used, I've used Reaper. I've used Reaper. Yeah, I think I started on Reaper actually. Cause it was such a guitarist friendly, duh. Um, it was just very easy to, uh, all the hockeys were very easy when I had my guitar in front of me and it was recording. Um, and also cheap. I think I paid like 60 bucks for it or something like

Marc Matthews:

that. I've still got the evaluation license. I've had it for, they come after me now. Um, they're gonna come after me cause I've had it for about six years. Evaluation license. Um, but yeah, you are right. It's about 60, I think it's 60 quid over here. I think it's probably, probably similar folks. We we're getting towards getting towards an hour now I told you one, one topic would be enough with all these things cuz you do often tangents and I know we haven't heard from our hour die yet with regards to how you start a song. So I think we're just Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. It's crazy stuff. Um, so, uh, Tim that's alright. As you mentioned then, do you, do you wanna just mention how, how, how do you start a song? How does it begin in, in the world of i l nine?

Aisle9:

Um, I, I think it's not dissimilar from Farrick and to, in many ways. Um, I think I do tend to start, um, from, often from a beat. Um, I will often get a groove going of some description. I just find that I sort of connect with it better if I've got a groove. Um, but not in, sometimes it's like, I mean, the song I've just got out at the moment plug the gates. Um, uh, like the, uh, the one that I've just got out at the moment, um, that was a piano kind of. A, a thing, and it is kind of quite obvious, the whole track starts with this little piano thing, and that was where that came from. And, and, and so the groove came after that, I think. But, you know, um, so it, it's not exclusive, but it is often because doing electronic things, synth wave and that kind of stuff, it will often be more like a eight bar or a 16 bar sort of thing. And then I, I sort of extrapolate that and, and, and, and sort of, once I've got like a whole load of different parts, start to break them down and kind of get a structure going, um, and then sort of flesh it out, or in fact often take away and sort of work out what doesn't work and what I don't need. Um, but like, um, yeah, I, I do try at the same time. I mean, a lot of my tracks are sort of like, I mean, it's like, well, it's funny, it's like. Um, Miami Knights that I wrote, which is, is kind of literally a two chord sort of piece. I don't think there's anything complex going on in that, whereas the one that I've just released has got a lot more changes on, on the chords, but like, you know, a lot of the time I sort of. I do find that it's, it's, it's, it's, it's more about sort of having groove and feel and melody than necessarily a very complex sort of harmonic construction underneath it. Um, and I do get very into sounds, I'm just very sort of hooked into sounds. But again, it might be something like where the base moves relative to the chords, You know, just some really interesting movement on the base. That makes that simple chord progression really good from, you know, sort of one verse to a chorus or something. Or it might be the fact that you change to an Octa type movement on the base or something in the chord. So it's often sort of subtle things that are changing, not, not huge ones to sort of kick something up from one part to another or whatever, but like, um, yeah, I do get very, very locked into sort of just. How sounds work together in the mix. I do tend to be working on the mix almost from the word go, but I have to try and stop myself from getting too bogged down in that because exactly like you said, Mark, I can just end up locked into that in my sort of producer brain and like really upset with . You know, that bass isn't sitting well with the kick drum and like you haven't got a tune though. I mean, what's the point of getting that sounding great if you don't have a song? So, you know, I do have to try and get out of that. And so that's my biggest, biggest stumbling block. I mean, you say like sort of sometimes not as prolific as you'd like to be, and I think that's sometimes what I get locked into. I think you're

Marc Matthews:

right. Yeah. I, I, this is what I'm trying, I'm trying different tools and tactics now to, to stop. I gate keep myself. I think when much like you said with mixing, I cannot help, but I think, oh, I just quickly mix that little bit while, while, while I'm here and I'll be like, Oh, that doesn't sound right now. And then I just gate keep myself, whereas I need to, I need to move away from doing that as well. Um, that was what, what was, was gonna be my question then too, like do mix as you go along. So, so you are mixing, this is going into the technicalities now of actual production. Yeah. Do you actually mix into, um, uh, if you have a, a compressor or, or some form like the ssl, um, what is it? The waves SSL console. Do you have that on your master bus? So you mix. Yes.

Aisle9:

Years, years ago, I, I, I would've never sort of done that, sort of have like, on my master bus, like, you know, a compressor and a limiter and maybe an EQ or that sort of thing. I just wouldn't have thought of doing that. Um, but then I think I was working out the box, I was working on mixing desks and, you know, it just wasn't an option. I didn't perhaps have that or sitting around to plug, you know, to wire up. So, um, and then I do sort of have a very much, I'll track all of this and then I'll mix it all later kind of mentality. But the more and more I've worked in the box, the more I've just like, will have something like that sitting on the end. And like, I think I'm constantly working with my mix versus like the compressor and the, the limiter. So I'm. You know, mix mixing into that. But like, you do have to be really careful doing that, that you don't lose sight of what that's doing and just think it's all fine, , and then you come back and look at the fact that it's applying an enormous amount of compression and Yes. You know, and actually you keep wondering why you can't turn something up. And the reason is that you're banging all the end stops with all the levels. So as long as you are really careful, that can work quite nicely. And then of course you are, you are kind of halfway there, you're kind of very close when you finish writing and then you're just tweaking things a little bit. But, you know, it can be, it has its good and bad sides, but overall, yes, that's what I, I find it works better than if I then write a track without that and just slap it all on the end. So yeah, I'll

Marc Matthews:

follow a similar workflow. Um, so the, the final one then, di di Miami die. Um, how, how, how do you start this songwriting game?

Die Miami Die:

Well, Um, well just on the, on the mixing point. So I mix while, while I'm creating because, um, I can't stand if it, the elements all might be there, but if they're not sounding good, I can't even stand to listen to 'em. I gotta make this sound at least halfway decent. Uh, I will mix while I'm going and then mix some more, and then I will just open a whole new project, bounce the stems out and start again to see if I could do better. Oh, right, right. Cause I always, I always look at it like, first of all, the processing, it can't handle all the plugins that I throw on there. So I'm like, All right, well let me bounce things out, you know, cuz I'll, I'll, I'll use mixed stems, uh, in my, my final mix. I'll start fresh. Um, but yeah, uh, anyway, for, for starting music. It, it depends. I mean, there, there are days where I wake up and I literally will wake up with and have a song I can hear in my head and I'm like, I don't know where it came from. There's like two that I really love and I gotta figure out. And they're not even synth wave. They're one of 'em is like a kinda alternative thing. And another one's kind of like this trance, uh, anthem. Anyway, I digress about that. Uh, for me, I think genre depends. Like if you're gonna do something more funky, like funkier, I feel like you probably want to get the drums in the bass really working well together. So maybe you wanna start with there. And typically a lot of music like that has chords peppered in or the chords, uh, or like, you know, roads or something is kind of sitting in the back. Um, Right. It kind of high. It depends on the genre, like what instruments are typically being highlighted. That's what I would start with. Um, Uh, one year or not. I know Tim likes that one. That one was, uh, me doing sound design. So I like to design, uh, like 90% of the sys that I use, I create essentially, like I'll patch 'em out from whatever plugin I'm using from scratch. Um, however, for that one I was using a preset and I was just kind of messing around and I just started hitting some random keys. I was like, Oh, that sounds very, it's a beautiful melody. So I started a completely new project. I got that melody down and then I revisited it, and that's how it, the song came about. So sometimes it'll be that other times I was trying to, um, one, uh, and one for good luck. If you guys listen to that, you'll hear super eighties kind of chord progression there. That one, I was trying to design a sound for another track on, um, like a Fairlight, uh, a cmi, uh, plugin. Arturi has a, a brilliant one. And I was just hitting those, those two, those two chords. And I, but when I was making that sound, it didn't fit with the track, but I was like, this would sound brilliant as its own track. So a lot of times I find I write some of my best stuff when I'm actually not even trying to write, uh, a song for it. It just kind of comes as an accident. Uh, and that's really when I put the best stuff down. But usually it's when I'm trying to design a sound, I'll just play some chords and that'll just kind of lead somewhere else. So yeah, Sound design's big for me.

Marc Matthews:

Yeah, it's, it's kind of like not forcing it, isn't it? Like if you're not forcing it, then it kind of happens,

Die Miami Die:

right? Yeah. It happens a lot more

Marc Matthews:

when you're not forcing it. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah. Folks, we're almost coming up to the hour mark now of the fourth Strength Pals virtual pub. So I know stunned faces. You can see this if you're watching this on YouTube. Um, what we're gonna do is if we, we'll go around and this is your opportunity, uh, those who've been on this before, you know what's coming next where you can just, um, tell the audience just. They, they know who you are now cause you've been talking, but where they can find you in your music online, so we'll, we'll, we'll snake our way around. I like some sort of serpent of thres. Where can we find you online? Yeah,

Thalrex:

so, um, you can find all my music on uh, Spotify and uh, band Camp SoundCloud. Um, yeah, I think that's all

Marc Matthews:

Fantastic. Lovely stuff. Uh, Tota. Sorry.

Totta:

Yeah. Uh, so Tota, you can find my music, basically. Any other digital streaming platforms, Spotify, Apple Music, Dier, TikTok, uh, all of the above. And I primarily use Instagram for my social media. If you wanna keep tabs on upcoming tracks. Like my new Christmas single coming 1st of December.

Marc Matthews:

Yes. Christmas single. How did I not ask that? Love it. Brilliant. I can't wait to hear that. Um, a deza and it's not often I hear people mention de um, maybe that's because I'm UK based and it's.

Aisle9:

Listens to it., did

Marc Matthews:

you,

Aisle9:

Uh, uh, Neon Highway? No. No. I just think nobody listens to

Marc Matthews:

it. I thought you said you used to listen to it. Yeah. I

Die Miami Die:

don't think many people used these.

Marc Matthews:

No, no. Um, Neon Highway. Where can we find you? Yeah,

Neon Highway:

just all the usual places under Neon Highway, Spotify, Um, all the usual platforms. Sound count, sound count, Band, Camp, sound, clouds. And most of the social media stuff goes through Instagram. Just Neon Highway

Marc Matthews:

Sense. Lovely stuffy, Farian.

Typherion:

Uh, yeah, same spiel, I guess wherever district kid is pushing my stuff. So Spotify, uh, der title? Uh, all of the above. Um, I also post most of my like, half baked ideas. I usually post them on Instagram as just these, like guitar play through montage videos, so you can

Marc Matthews:

check those out. Nice.

Aisle9:

Thank you. They're all really good. Yeah. Oh, no. Yeah, you can find my music under R nine on, on all the, all the normal streaming platforms, you know, um, just don't listen to SoundCloud cuz they don't pay me anything. Um, and, um, you know, um, uh, in fact basically listen on Apple Music all the time or title, you know, just like, not that I ever do, but like they'll pay me more. So, um, no, no, you can find them absolutely anywhere and um, uh, particularly I'm active on Spotify, I guess so. Um, and then, um, at I nine Music on Instagram, I am very, um, probably far too busy. I would be told by my wife on, um, Instagram and then TikTok. Um, yes that I do exist on that as well at the same thing. And I'm on YouTube and all the rest of it. And, um, Twitter, I'm, for some reason I'm at aisle nine. Synth wave. So there we go. Yeah, lovely. And

Marc Matthews:

thank you di me die,

Die Miami Die:

the usual, uh, Spotify, SoundCloud Band Camp. If you google dia me Die, I don't think you're gonna get anything else. So yeah, just use Google, you'll find me. Uh, and yeah, I'm most active on Instagram and Twitter

Marc Matthews:

and yeah, that's it. Fantastic folks. Um, as always with this, I'll put links in the show notes so the audience can go away and do, go check out everybody who's participated today, Go check out their music. Um, folks, thanks for joining me on this, uh, the fourth episode. There'll be one more before Christmas, um, for the audience listening. So do look out for that or rather listen, look, if you watch, um, yeah, I dunno where I was going with that. Um, but yeah, look out for that. And um, folks, thanks for joining me on this and I'll catch up with you all again soon.

Welcome and artist introductions
Songwriting tips you need to know
How to write a song // Totta
How to start a song // Thalrex
How to turn a loop into a song
The anatomy of a song
How to start a song // Neon Highway
Should you finish every song?
How to start a song // Typherion
(Cont.) How to start a song // Typherion
Why do producers not create their own sounds?
How to start a song // Aisle9
How to start a song // Die Miami Die

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